What Do I Like About Liberalism?

Recently, someone on a forum posted a challenge for people to take a look at their political polar opposites and post what they liked about that political philosophy. I stared at the screen for a long, long time because I realized that I really don’t like anything about liberalism. Oh sure, I have friends that are moderately liberal, I can find things about them to like, but not about their politics. I literally cannot think of a single thing that I like about what they want, or more particularly why they want it. Sure, they ostensibly want to help people, but at the end of the day, they don’t really care about helping people, they just want to make them reliant on the government. I want to help people too, I just want them to be self-reliant and responsible for themselves. They claim to want some decent things, I guess, but in truth, the end just doesn’t justify the means. In fact, the end doesn’t satisfy the initial claims. The people who they claim to want to help don’t end up being helped. The equality they claim to want to achieve doesn’t get achieved.

Don’t get me wrong, the neo-cons are just as bad. I’m not on their side either, in fact, I’m not on the side of any organized political party in existence in modern-day America. They all suck. I can’t say my side is better than your side because I don’t even have a side. My side died in America 50 years ago and we’ve gone down the wrong path ever since.

Someone else asked what was better politically, 1985 or 2015. My answer is neither. To get a decent year, you’d have to go back into the mid 50s to early 60s, back when we had actual conservatism in this country, before the late 60s turned the nation to idiotic liberalism. So long as we stick to politics, 1985 sucked every bit as bad as today does. Sure, you had one of the last pseudo-conservatives in the White House, but he was still sticking everything on a credit card, the very antithesis of fiscal responsibility.

So seriously, what is it that I’m supposed to admire about liberalism at all? Please clue me in. I’m just not seeing it.

That "idiotic liberalism" as you call it is what gave us the civil rights movement, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, greater equality for African-Americans, greater equality for women and the list goes on. Are we to take it then from your remark that you don't support any of these improvements in the lives of those Americans who were discriminated against, who had far less opportunity than the typical white person to partake in the so-called American Dream? You want a return to the 1950s with its blatant racial and gender discrimination?

Dude, the liberalism you don't like isn't real liberalism any more than neo-conservationism and Jerry Farwell's Christian right is real conservativism. The foundation of liberalism is equality and liberty.

And that may be true, but I rarely ever see the "equality and liberty" liberals pointing out that the other self-identified liberals aren't actually liberals. I do it all the time with neo-cons and I am, granted ,starting to see liberals complain about regressives, but in general, I'm not seeing very many liberals correcting misconceptions.